Living the dream.
Hello everyone, and welcome the weekend.
June 1st marks the beginning of hurricane season in the Atlantic. It is the time to get prepared for what might happen. I am ready.
We are expecting our first Tropical Storm this weekend. Here we go for 2022...
This week my share is a picture I made as an experiment when I bought my 10mm fixed focal length lensfor my camera. I was trying to go for extremes with depth of field, and this is what I was able to do.
-Photograph by Kevin Parson
I am looking forward to seeing everyone else's photographs this weekend.
-Kevin
Thanks for kicking off our first week of June WPF, Kevin.
I love using a "prime" lens when I can get away with it. I think multi-focal point "zoom" lenses, at least the ones under $6000, can get a little blurry. Nice photo.
Have you ever experimented with pinhole lenses?
What's this? Model railroading? This thing looks like it belongs under a washing machine!
Turntable_Oblique by Edmund, on Flickr
Some of you might recall maybe two months ago I removed my programmable turntable drive and went back to "old-school" worm and worm-wheel gearing. I still wasn't quite satisfied with the backlash.
Well, the other day I was sifting through "stuff" in the tool shed and found one of the nice right-angle drives I was looking for
Turntable_Crown by Edmund, on Flickr
Despite the dust, this is a beautiful, precision, zero-backlash drive. Just what I was hoping to have for the TT. So here I am experimenting with synchronous belts and ratios. I got it to 10:1 but I'd like to go higher.
Turntable_drive by Edmund, on Flickr
It will be fun stuffing all this gear under the layout
Looking forward to some neat stuff — on to the photos!
Cheers, Ed
Thanks for starting WPF, Kevin.
A great looking scene.
Ed. Throw nothing away. Are you sure it's not part of a washing machine.
Seriously a neat piece of kit. Well done.
Some pictures from my last running session.
Class 25 25237 with a Leeds Central to York local train leaving Roseville Station. The two cats on the shed roof are enjoying the sunshine.
IMG_2228 by David Harrison, on Flickr
Class 47 47299 'Ariadne' waits at to signal for clearance to leave Crown Point Yard. J.H.Thompson's Timber Yard is behinnd.
IMG_2241 by David Harrison, on Flickr
David
To the world you are someone. To someone you are the world
I cannot afford the luxury of a negative thought
gmpullmanHave you ever experimented with pinhole lenses?
When I was in High School I was gifted a Minolta 35mm SLR by my uncle. It was his old camera, and he upgraded to a Canon. He gave me his entire kit, including several lenses.
One of the lenses was a fixed focal length "wide angle" lens around 30mm. I made a pinhole for it following an article by Ben King. I don't remember if the article was in Model Railroader or Railroad Model Craftsmen.
I got good results, but the edges were always fuzzy. I thought I did something wrong, and did not use it much. Also, back in the film days it took a whole roll of film to bracket and block a shot. Even at 24 tries sucess was not guaranteed. All these pictures were shot on slide film, never transferred to print, and have long been lost.
It was not until later that I learned that the fuzzy edges were normal with a homemade pinhole aperture (unless your name is Ben King), and the pictures in the magazines crop this out.
It's amazing to me how quickly we hit another weekend. Time didn't seem to go that fast when I was working and waiting for the weekend.
Kevin, thanks for starting us out this week. I know I repeat myself, but your photography skills are impressive. I really like that city scene photo.
Ed, I'm glad that you know what you are doing with the turntable. I'm afraid it looks too mechanically complex to me. I'll be looking forward to see how you get it under the layout and operating the way you like!
David, as always, I love the 'scenes' from your layout. I know it's not that large, but the way you have things arranged, it appears like it's a huge layout.
For this week, I have another 'old' photo (it's at least two years old). This was my attempt at building an ethanol plant. I never got things completed before I decided to build a new layout and tore this one apart. I am going to try again to scratchbuild a chemical or ethanol plant on the new layout. I've always liked seeing all the lights and framework of these plants when I lived in Louisiana.
York1 John
I asked my doctor if I gave up delicious food and all alcohol, would I live longer? He said, "No, but it will seem longer."
We are off to a slow start this week, but the rest of the forum seems pretty active, so that is very good. I want to extend a huge hearty "Thank You" to everyone that has contributed so far
Ed: Please keep us updated with this turntable drive project. I used a gear-reduction-head electric motor with a rubber LEGO wheel pressed against the plywood drive wheel on my last Bowser turntable. I was planning to do this again, but your device sure looks promising. If it works I will probably duplicate it.
David: Thank you as always for the views of your gorgeous layout. I love the passenger car that is coupled to the crane's boom car. Beautiful model.
John: I lived outside of Baton Rouge in Slaughter, Lousiana for one year (1980-1981), and even though I was barely a teenager I remember the chemical plants well. My best friends father worked in one of the Ethyl facilities. I remember riding to pick him up from work one day, and the plants were amazing sights at night. He grew up to become dean of psychological studies at a major midwestern university. Your model is wonderful. I'll bet the new one will be even better.
There is plenty of weekend left. I hope more good stuff will be shared.
Kevin, Thanks for the WPF start-up, like your Fords, if not mistaken Phil Silvers drove a cream colored 48' downstream in the iconic comedy movie 'It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.'
John, I know what you mean, there is something appealing about how a chemical plant or refinery looks at night, especially at a shoreline with all those lights reflecting off the water.
Thanks to all the contributors and viewers. Have a good weekend and Happy National Shopping Cart Day. Regards, Peter
York1I know I repeat myself, but your photography skills are impressive. I really like that city scene photo.
Thank you for the compliment John.
The entire scene is just backdrop. There is not a single model in view of any structure. I glued Walthers background buildings to 1/4" MDF and cut them out. I lined them up going deep into the scene, and used these to check depth of field on the lense.
I could have used a parallel line board, but this was more fun.
The pictures from this experiment turned out better than expected, by far.
"One difference between pessimists and optimists is that while pessimists are more often right, optimists have far more fun."
Here are a few pics of night operations on my CB&Q/BN multi era layout.
Good morning
Thanks for hosting another WPF Kevin.
Had nothing new on the railroad front this weekend but always enjoy browsing as a spectator here.
You certainly have a talent for staging some excellent photo shoots Kevin. You definitely captured the depth perception you were after on that one. You would have made a great photographer as a profession.
Could use one of those right angle drives for a future turntable if you have a spare one Ed You certainly are an Innovative type of guy as your last turntable drive is recalled among other things you engineer to work on your layout.
Always love to see your layout pictures David. Just when it's thought you can't possibly have anything new to share, you come out with an unseen lumber mill photo and anything but two stray cats on a Hot Tin Roof Always appreciate your style of modeling.
Wish there was room for an industrial scene with big tanks and girder cribbing on my layout John. Great job you did with the intricate detail.
Like the bus scene Peter. Always enjoy your photography and modeling scenes that you do.
Excellent night scenes RMNRWY. Those pics definitely spoke to me as a big fan of Green Machines. Would like to see some day pictures of your fine modeling sometime as well.
Great stuff this weekend and thanks for sharing gentleman. Enjoyed!
TF